Raja-vidya, the King of Knowledge

We may be proud of our academic education, but if asked what we are, we are not able to say. Everyone is under the conception that this body is the self, but we learn from Vedic sources that this is not so. Only after realizing that we are not these bodies can we enter into real knowledge and understand what we actually are.

“This knowledge is the king of all education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the self by realization, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting and it is joyfully performed.” —Bhagavad-gita 9.2

The author

At their first meeting, in 1922, Srila Prabhupada was asked by his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, to broadcast Vedic knowledge in English. In the years that followed, Srila Prabhupada wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad-gita, assisted the Gaudiya Matha in its work and, in 1944, started Back to Godhead, an English fortnightly magazine.